Finance

The history of riskier lending over the last half century can offer lessons for today's market.

Many originators stopped making riskier products, including jumbo loans and low credit score offerings, during April.

The government-sponsored enterprises have set new temporary limits on mortgage sales while extending processing flexibilities related to COVID-19.

But it is still looking to conserve capital to cover future delinquencies and will likely halt dividends to the parent company.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are backing the first commercial mortgage-backed securities activity in two months, through two deals that exclude hotel or department store retail assets that are most exposed to pandemic-related stresses.

Some benefits are materializing from Fannie Mae's pledge to limit servicers' exposure to principal-and-interest advances the way Freddie Mac does, but counterparties of both GSEs remain exposed to other concerns.

But Black Knight and Arch Capital's mortgage insurance business aren't as affected, at least so far.

The Federal Reserve's emergency rescue of the U.S. mortgage market should have set off celebration among lenders trying to keep up with demand from borrowers. Instead, executives at Quicken Loans got a hefty margin call.

Jay Bray speaks about the company's experience in working with distressed borrowers going back to the Great Recession.

Fannie Mae's profitability suffered but it managed to stabilize the mortgage market in the first quarter even with the coronavirus disrupting, among other things, certain credit-risk transfer vehicles it has used.